I just came across a hefty old desktop file full of cobwebs and rediscovered this quote given to me years ago as food for thought. Please enjoy!

From The History of Love:

“Having begun to feel, people’s desire to feel grew. They wanted to feel more, feel deeper, despite how much it sometimes hurt. People became addicted to feeling. They struggled to uncover new emotions. It’s possible that this is how art was born. New kinds of joy were forged, along with new kinds of sadness: The eternal disappointment of life as it is; the relief of unexpected repriece; the fear of dying. Even now, all possible feelings do not yet exist. There are still those that lie beyond our capacity and our imagination. From time to time, when a piece of music no one has ever written, or a painting no one has ever painted, or something else impossible to predict, fathom, or yet describe takes place, a new feeling enters the world. And then, for the millionth time in the history of feeling, the heart surges, and absorbs the impact.”

This one is in Chinese Character. I found it on a website selling Asian art called “Oriental Outpost.” The site offers to custom create calligraphy scrolls of the written philosophy. Beh, I’ll just use it for the quote…

ru (4) mu (4) san (1) fen (1)

Here is the description of the quote’s translated meaning from the website..

“These four characters together translate in English to a strong form of “profound” or

“written with a forceful hand”.

But there is much more to the story…
The deep meaning behind this phrase comes from a man named Wan Xizhi who lived in the third century.
He was a great writer and calligrapher whose writing style influenced generations of other writers and calligraphers.

He once wrote words on a piece of wood to be taken to an engraver.
When the engraver began to carve the characters into the wood, he found that Wang Xizhi’s writing had penetrated the wood about 3/8 of an inch. Thus people believed that his words were so powerful, and so profound that it caused the ink from his brush to penetrate the wood deeply.

The phrase literally means:

“penetrated wood three fen”

(fen is an ancient Chinese measurement a little over to 1/8 of an inch or almost 4mm).

Can you guess why I might find this Chinese proverb so appealing?

site: http://www.orientaloutpost.com/ancient_chinese_proverbs_and_philosophy_phrases.php

“Don’t ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive, and go do that, because what the world needs is people who have come alive.” – John Eldredge, Wild at Heart

“Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure – these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.”

Steve Jobs

Can’t even remember where I found this one. It’s been on a sticky note on my desktop for 3 or 4 weeks now. Not sure why I didn’t put it up sooner but it has great merit between those lines.